Dutch Sadness Curdles Into Anger as Crash Answers Sought

President Vladimir Putin, who has repeatedly denied Russian involvement in the fighting in Ukraine, said the government in Kiev bore responsibility because the crash wouldn't have occurred without the current strife with separatists battling regular forces in two eastern regions of the country. Photographer: Andrey Rudakov/Bloomberg

July 18 (Bloomberg) -- Rob Von Boltog waved friends and
family goodbye as they prepared to fly from Amsterdam’s Schiphol
Airport to Kuala Lumpur en route to Indonesia, hours after a
missile downed an earlier flight on a similar route.

In all, 298 people died in the strike that knocked the
Boeing Co. 777 on flight 17 from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur from
the sky within 50 kilometers (30 miles) of the Russian border
yesterday. The bulk of the passengers -- 189 -- were from the
Netherlands, including a Dutch senator, who died with his wife
and daughter, and a University of Amsterdam academic, who fought
to bring cheaper AIDS drugs to Africa.

“I’m relieved that my friends didn’t take a flight half a
day earlier,” the 65-year-old consultant from the Hague said.
“They should shut down the airspace above the area.”

Across the Netherlands, sadness is beginning to turn to
anger as the nation seeks answers to what lay behind the worst
aviation disaster to hit the country since more than 200 Dutch
tourists died in a collision in Gran Canaria in 1977. As the
country’s red, white and blue flag flew at half-mast around
Amsterdam’s canals, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said today
he’ll leave no stone unturned to catch the culprits.

“If this proves to be an attack, then I will personally
see the perpetrators will be tracked down and get the punishment
they deserve,” Rutte told reporters. “We owe that to the
innocent victims and their relatives.”

Among the victims was Joep Lange, infectious diseases
professor at the University of Amsterdam, who was traveling to a
conference in Melbourne. He was involved in the creation of the
first medical insurance system in Africa, according to the
university’s website.

Rich Countries

“He was shocked to see how, from 1996 onwards, expensive
HIV therapies became available to patients in rich countries,
but not in Africa,” according to the university’s website. “He
made it his mission to change this and to put an end to the
gross inequality in access to life-saving medication.”

Labor Party senator Willem Witteveen, his wife, Lidwien,
and daughter, Marit, were also killed in the crash. The founding
dean of the College of Liberal Arts at Tilburg University, he
rejoined the Senate last year, acting as a spokesman for
security and justice, after first serving between 1999 and 2007.
He is survived by a son, brother and his parents.

“He was a thought leader for the party, and most of all an
incredibly nice man and a dear colleague,” said Diederik
Samsom, Labor Party leader, in a radio interview with NOS. “You
can only have nightmares from the idea of what may have happened
in that plane.”

Horrible Murder

The disaster dominated the news in the country of almost 17
million people. “298 Deaths,” De Telegraaf, the biggest Dutch
paper, says in black capital letters on its front page.
“Horrible Murder,” the subhead says.

“In Shock,” Algemeen Dagblad says, printed over a picture
of a woman and bespectacled man with a gold cross necklace,
covering his mouth with his hand in horror.

It wasn’t just the Dutch who suffered loss. Newcastle
United, a soccer-team from the North-East of England, said two
fans, John Alder and Liam Sweeney, died on the flight. The pair
were traveling to support the team on its pre-season tour in New
Zealand.

Alder was nicknamed the Undertaker for the suits that he
wore to games and “barely” missed a Newcastle game in 50
years, while Sweeney acted as a steward on supporters’ buses for
away games, the club said on its website.

Paris Retreat

Philomena Tiernan, an Australian nun with Irish roots, died
in the crash, as she traveled to Malaysia after a retreat in
Paris.

“It’s been a lifetime ambition of Phil’s to go to this
source of her spirituality,” Father Tony Doherty told state
broadcaster RTE. “She’d traveled from Paris to Amsterdam to get
this plane and, well, the rest is tragedy, I guess.”

With the families of the dead mostly not yet speaking to
the media, much of the coverage focused on Cor Pan, whose
Facebook page listed his home as the Dutch town of Volendam.
Media reported that Pan was on the flight and had posted a photo
of the plane as he was boarding yesterday, adding the line: “in
case it disappears, this is how it looks” referring to the
Malaysian Airline System Bhd. flight which disappeared without
trace in March.

Celebrations around the finish of the Four Days Marches,
which involves walkers traipsing 25 miles every day for four
days, in Nijmegen in the east of the Netherlands will be toned
down, with planned music canceled.

The Dutch soccer association asked clubs to keep flags at
half-mast this weekend, wear black armbands during matches and
respect a minute of silence before games.

Dutch Anger

While it remains unclear who is responsible, with Russia
and Ukraine blaming each other for the downing of the jet
yesterday, Dutch anger is focusing on President Vladimir Putin.
Ukraine’s state security service said it intercepted phone
conversations among pro-Russian militants discussing a missile
strike.

“Hopefully Putin will fall down from his throne and the
world can get a better place!” Irene Hoofs, who says she lives
in Singapore and was born in Amsterdam, posted on her Twitter
feed. “Angry that these people make our world so dangerous.”

Putin, who has repeatedly denied Russian involvement in the
fighting in Ukraine, said the government in Kiev bore
responsibility because the crash wouldn’t have occurred without
the current strife with separatists battling regular forces in
two eastern regions of the country.

Trade Relations

Dutch-Russian trade relations trace back for centuries.
Last year, King Willem Alexander visited Putin in the Kremlin.
The King and Rutte attended the opening ceremony of the Winter
Olympics in Sochi, which was shunned by other government
leaders.

Others are questioning the plane’s route. Flight 17 was at
about 33,000 feet (10,000 meters), taking a route over eastern
Ukraine when it came down. While several other carriers avoided
that path, the flight was at an altitude cleared for commercial
traffic, according to navigation agency Eurocontrol.

Back at Schiphol Airport, Von Boltog reflects as he
considers the flight he is scheduled to take to Indonesia on
Wednesday.

“Of course, I’m more worried,” he said.

(An earlier version of this story was corrected to remove
reference to the Hague as the capital of the Netherlands.)